Anti-Greek Paranoia in Skopje: The Case of NGO “GDOM”

In the manner of Western medieval witch-hunting, today evening in Skopje the far-right movement “Civil movement for the defense of Macedonia” („Граѓанско движење за одбрана на Македонија“), represented by its “elite”, holds a meeting in “Rasadnik” sport-hall in Skopje’s municipality of “Kisela Voda”. Apparently formed ad hoc, regardless of the obvious high level of organization which is quite atypical for FYROM’s political organizations, virtually couple of days after the announcement of the “Coup D’ Etat” operation of the policy, this “non-governmental” organization, its leadership, composed from former Marxist ideologue Violeta Ačkoska, former TV sport-commentator and convict, now a populist TV personality Milenko Nedelkovski, minor movie actor from Kumanovo Toni Mihajlovski as well as Mirka Velinovska, a journalist which switched her loyalty from SDSM, towards defense of VMRO-DPMNE, is, in 21st century, dividing the public into “patriots” and “traitors”.
By calling for marginalization and ostracism of “traitors of Macedonia” (to which label of “pro-Greek spies” is attached during this formative stage of this organization), this organization project paranoia and fear into the population, with obvious support of the government (a university professor from the Faculty of Agriculture was exposed today for sending mass-email to VMRO-DPMNE support to attend the meeting) in the style of policy of historic VMRO: “who is not with us, he is against us”.
What is characteristic for this organization, which for the first time since its formation, after touring several provincial towns, is holding a session in city of Skopje is that its leadership, former leftists, are using the fact that lay public, unaware of the technical issues related to the problematic of mass phone surveillance imposes the opinion which the very government still doesn’t mentions explicitly that Republic of Greece is the factor which deeply violated sovereignty of FYROM by mass-surveillance. After extensive demonization of Greece and “Greek danger” as a part of local folklore in the “nation of direct descendants of Phillip II and Alexander the Great”, it is obvious that the central government manipulates nominally (but not factually) Non-Governmental Organization to create a cause (in this case, “protection from Greece”) that would justify extreme measures against “spies, traitors and members of the Fifth Column”, without direct involvement.
The latest session of this organization, in service of far-right government of FYROM, serves to promote unity over non-existing problem in light of failures of the government in all major aspect of its domain. It shows that the line between ‘de jure’ and ‘de facto’ status, actions and motives of organizations is still blurry and that conjectures of governmental official stances and even more radical positions of “independent” organizations are useful for creation of a public fear and cultivation of ultra-nationalism.